Best Way to Handle Expiring Pages?

How can a page with limited shelf life be Google friendly?

[bboyce]

Any suggestions on how to best handle pages that have a limited shelf life (1 - 6 months)? I am working on a website for a small real estate office that usually carries 5 - 15 listings. Each listing has a very detailed page about it and the area that the listing is located in. I would prefer for these pages to be indexed by Google, but I do not want to pollute Google with outdated listings that have sold. All listing data is fed into a database, so realistically I could check to see if the listing is still valid and return a 404 or 301... which way would be best for Google? The ideal scenario is for each listing to be indexed in Google while it is active but disappear from the index once it is sold. Any help is much appreciated...

[I_am_back]

Hi bboyce

I would simply replace the pages content as required. If the site is popular (PR in Googles eyes) Googlebot will visit each day and update accordingly.

[bboyce]

But what is the best way to get Google to drop a page when it is no longer a valid listing? The whole backend is dynamic, so the urls to each listing page are similar to:

www.website.com/listings/*listingidnumber*

So when the listing is sold, off the market, expired, etc. it is no longer linked from anywhere else on the website. In essence, it is outdated data.

Would it be better to just mark the listing as SOLD and let it sit in Google's database for eternity or would it be better to feed some type of 404 or 301 to prevent spamming up Google with outdated pages? (goin for the good karma here if possible)

[killroy]

I would use a 301, so visitors aren't lost. perhaps have a page "You've visited a listign that has already been sold" and then javascript redirect to the homepage after a few seconds, or simply have a searchbox on that page.

SN

[bboyce]

Will the 301 drop the url from Google's database? For example:

/listings/31 - This property gets sold

I put a 301 redirect on that page to a page showing all listings:

/listings/31 -> 301 code -> /listinglist

Google has both urls already in the database:

GOOGLE RESULTS:

/listings/31 : Property Listing - 123 Main Street
/listinglist : Available Property List

After applying the 301, would Google still show this in a search:

/listings/31 : Available Property List (because this URL was redirected to /listinglist)
/listinglist : Available Property List

or would it drop the first listing and only leave the one that it was redirected to (which was already in Google's DB)?